I Can't Say "I Love You" | Kuroo Tetsurō

Chapter 23: Gym #3

Karasuno's team were panting heavily and dripping with sweat from the heat. It's the third day of the Tokyo away games and the temperature just kept rising. They did another round of penalty laps up the grassy hill; their managers, Shimizu and Yachi, waited for the players at the top of the hill to hand them their drinks.

Mirai was running around refilling and handing out water bottles to her own team. She watched their new regular, Lev, and smiled at how much he's improved since his recruitment. It was obvious that his extra practices were paying off.

Everyone in Nekoma, especially their rowdy ace Yamamoto, played each set with everything they had. But with this kind of high temperature, Mirai worried that her team would collapse from some kind of heatstroke.

"Center!" Hinata yelled.

Tanaka bounced the ball up and it got caught between the net by Lev and Hinata. With a bit more power, the half-Russian managed to push the ball towards Karasuno's side, and Nekoma scored another point.

Mirai sat with their coach and diligently took notes of their match. Their rivals seemed to be improving greatly in such a short amount of time. It looked like they developed new tricks since the start of the training camp too.

"Hey! You held back, didn't you?"

She stopped writing when she heard yelling from Karasuno's side — and these weren't normal game cries either. There was an actual argument between the freak duo and it looked like their speedy little tangerine boy was angry at the grumpy setter for something.

"Me? Hold back?" Kageyama stared down at his partner with an intense glare. "...With volleyball?"

Even from the other side of the court, you could feel the tension from their group. Mirai got chills just by looking at the dark haired setter's deep blue eyes.

"Don't stop it, Kageyama!" Hinata insisted.

Kuroo glanced over at her as if sensing her unease and gave her a look of concern. Mirai caught his worried gaze, and she immediately replaced her frown with a smile, silently telling him that everything was alright.

"He's worried about me again..." She giggled at the thought.

The Nekoma captain had been extra attentive of her since the start of their training camp. It felt nice to have someone look out for her like he did. Although she still wished for the dork to stop teasing her so much, his personality wasn't as bad as she initially thought.

By the end of the day, everyone split up into separate groups and did some free practices. Mirai stayed with the other managers and helped with cleaning up the gym for the players to use. When she finished putting away some of the volleyballs into an empty cart, she looked around for her best friend who was supposed to be practicing receives.

Mirai scanned the entire gym and saw Lev lying on the floor with Yaku yelling for him to get off his lazy ass. She almost wanted to rescue him when he gave her the sad puppy eyes. But practicing his receives would help him improve so she shook her head and apologized as Yaku dragged him away.

"Kenma! Send me some tosses!"

Hinata approached their group and the pudding head groaned in protest. Kenma didn't like tiring himself out with practice but Mirai noticed that something was off with him.

Despite not wanting to do any more physical activity for rest of the day, Kenma was surprisingly cooperative and sent the hyperactive ball of sunshine a few tosses. He eventually ran away after the fifth toss, but hey, it was a new record.

With the Nekoma setter gone somewhere else, Hinata bolted out of the gym and started running towards another. He still had a lot of energy to spare and Mirai became intrigued to where he was going. Lev must have felt the same because he suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her along after the Karasuno middle blocker.